


Every Kind of Flavor

by Solrosfalt



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken | Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
Genre: (and Frost I guess), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cameos of Lena and Maria and Malice and Catria, F/F, First Dates, Fluff, MinPallaWknd 2020, Slice of Life, and oh they were book club mates, sometimes you just want your faves to eat ice cream and have a good time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:55:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24231718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solrosfalt/pseuds/Solrosfalt
Summary: When Palla moved for college, joining a local book club was a given. And as she does, she soon meets someone cool and nice that she wants to get to know better, and it seems like the feeling is mutual.
Relationships: Maria & Dyute | Delthea, Minerva/Paora | Palla
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: Minerva/Palla Weekend 2020





	Every Kind of Flavor

**Author's Note:**

> considering all the stuff they have to go through in canon I just needed them to go on a date and nothing complicated happens at all. also Modern AU only good if it has printed versions of some of my favorite fics-
> 
> Loosely based on the prompt "Celebration" for MinPalla Weekend!

The library was the only place in the big city of Macedon that felt the same as the respective place in Palla’s small hometown. Strange, considering the two libraries couldn’t be more different – one was a five-story building overlooking the ocean with modern art and high glass walls everywhere, the other was a flat one-floor place crammed full of books and bean bags and art from the local high school. But they both smelled like books, and they both had the air of timelessness, and they both welcomed Palla with open arms.

When Palla had moved for college, joining a local book club was a given. She studied veterinary science until her eyes drooped, and yet she still craved the whimsy and joy of fiction. Her world was shrouded in a mixture of taciturn information and swirling stories, with audiobooks almost always running on her phone.

She’d been nervous to move away from her family, but she knew where she’d find kindred souls. The first months at uni, she’d been welcomed into the small library study circle sections by at least two dozen people her age, and it was a sweet variation from the solitude of pre-clinical. Since the book club was so large, they branched out into smaller groups when it was time for discussion on their pieces. There was a rotation every three weeks, which Palla usually didn’t mind, but now she really didn’t want to switch groups. This month her fellow readers were Lena who was in fourth year of med school, Malice who only read graphic novels, and _Minerva_.

Minerva did not seem like the type to read books for enjoyment as often as the book club required. With her customized leather jacket with red strings sewn over the back like an extension of her hair, she looked more at place at a punk concert. With her focused frown, she didn’t exactly seem at _home_ with books in her lap, but she obviously read them anyway, and Palla loved hearing her thoughts. Minerva had a special interest in how medieval weapons and armor actually worked, much of it because she went to literal two-handed sword practice once a week (which was the absolute coolest thing a person could do as far as Palla was concerned). She and Lena usually got into passionate debates whether or not injuries in fantasy novels were legit, and even though they managed not to derail the discussion with it, Palla wouldn’t have minded if they had.

After the book club session ended, Palla and Minerva lingered by one of the windows toward the ocean, warmed by the rays of evening sun, and continued whatever thoughts Minerva had brought up.

More often than not they stayed like that for twenty full minutes until Minerva’s little sister’s book club ended, and the two of them had to go home.

Still, Minerva looked over her shoulder each time and gave Palla a little wave, and Palla waved back.

Palla was no stranger to love, or at least so she claimed – not an expert, but not a stranger. She’d gone to a movie or two with Sonya, a cute girl in her high school, but then Sonya had moved to Valentia, and they’d drifted apart. Then Palla had attempted to date a boy, which had just not worked in any way. He’d been fun, but it stressed her out that he had romantic interests and she clearly did not.

She could pretend to be helpful whenever her little sister Catria asked her about her high school heartaches, but in truth, Palla had never been in deep with anyone. People loved to call her nice, but her niceness was almost all-consuming and made it difficult for her to build true connections with people. She was just polite to everyone and kept them at a distance. She greeted and smiled at her fellow veterinary students and ate lunch with a few of them, but she didn’t exactly consider them her friends.

The book club was different. She let herself laugh, let herself free and offered all what she was, and never had this been as palpable as with Minerva.

The three weeks before the next rotation swept by in no time at all. Palla would miss not having Minerva in her group anymore, but they could still spend those twenty minutes after the sessions’ end together. They said goodbye to Lena and Malice, and then sat down by the ocean window, but Minerva clearly hesitated before they took their place. Palla continued their earlier conversation about the romance of _Moonflower_ , and Minerva looked at her with a small smile and her head in her hand, only adding a few thoughts of her own. They were ten minutes in of the total twenty when Minerva carefully put her hand back in her lap and tilted her head.

“Maria isn’t coming today”, she said, and whatever Palla had been thinking of before then disappeared from her mind.

“She… isn’t?”

“She’s with a friend tonight. I’m supposed to pick her up at eight.”

Palla glanced toward the giant analogue clock above the reception. In two hours, then.

“And you still went to the session?” Palla blurted, and the flush spread over her throat. Terrible of her to assume Minerva _wouldn’t_ just because she didn’t seem like the book type, and the heat on her cheeks almost hurt.

“Oh yes”, Minerva smiled, unfazed by Palla’s surprise, and put her crossed arms on the armrest closest to Palla’s chair. “It’s the last session before rotation. I didn’t want to miss your thoughts. And it’s not like I _hate_ reading; I’m just really slow.”

“I’ll lend you my audiobook account anytime”, Palla smiled back, trying to smooth over the sweetness of Minerva’s words. Not because she was scared, but hope was a fickle thing and she didn’t want to read too much into things.

“Right”, Minerva answered and put her head back in her hand. “Well, I was just—I was wondering whether you’d like to hang out for a bit?”

“I—yes please”, Palla answered, and she bit her tongue. Her polite instincts slipped forth and she hoped she didn’t sound too awkward.

Minerva relaxed her shoulders and closed her eyes with a tense exhale. “Oh good”, she chuckled. “Nice.”

“So, uhm, here?”

“I don’t know”, Minerva laughed and looked out the window again. “The view’s nice, but these chairs are kind of hard. Is there anywhere in particular you’d like to go?”

Palla returned her book to her backpack with a hesitant smile. “I go to uni and then I go home”, she admitted. “Sometimes I go here too of course, and grocery shopping, but other than that I really don’t know this city. I haven’t been to any restaurants or cafés.”

Minerva sucked in a breath. “Not even to _Frost’s Icicle_?”

“I… no.”

Minerva uncrossed her legs and got to standing, the shoulder strap of her bag slung over her head. “That’s it! You cannot claim to have lived in Macedon and never experienced the bliss of its finest ice cream!” Her voice had been almost playful for a moment, but then she retreated back to her careful smile as she rubbed the back of her neck. “I mean, unless you hate ice cream, in which case… fair enough.”

Palla laughed and got to standing as well. “What’s so special about _Frost’s_?”

“They have _every_ flavor, for one thing”, Minerva explained and led the way out of the library. “Even sour cream and onion! And one called ‘ _summer’s kiss_ ’ that tastes like bubblegum, but they’re too embarrassed to name it for what it is. It tastes like pure chemical fakeness, but it’s Maria’s favorite.”

“…Do they have pistachio?”

Minerva grinned at her. Maybe that was answer enough.

As they left the library behind, Palla thought of how nice it was to not be the one waving at Minerva from a distance, but being the one who walked beside her.

They strolled along the edge of the walkway, with the ocean only an arm’s length away. The waves and the seagulls usually accompanied Palla on the way home, but now she had company of a different sort.

Minerva’s earrings sparked in the sun. All three of them were a different color – one gold, one silver and one bronze, and all went perfectly with the flaming red of her hair.

“I like your rings”, Palla said, just to make conversation, and pointed at her own ear for emphasis. “My sister wants to get one in her brow, but I’ve managed to convince her to wait for a bit. She’s just sixteen.”

Minerva snorted a laugh and pointed at her bronze earring. “Don’t tell her I got this one when I was nine, then. On a dare. And _my_ big brother didn’t say no—he was the one _making_ the dare, and then he didn’t back me up when our parents yelled at me over it. Bit of an ass, he is.”

Palla chuckled and put her hair behind her ear. “Okay, that story stays between us. The other two rings, then?”

“The silver one is classified too”, Minerva said with a laugh. “It’s embarrassing, really. I did it on my own out of spite, right after my parents had yelled at me about the first piercing. The third one I got when I turned eighteen, as a present from Maria. She said I should have three of these to represent our family.”

“That’s so sweet”, Palla said.

Minerva looked a little bit proud as Palla spoke, and she mirrored her by putting her hair behind her ear. “You have sisters too, right?”

“Two little ones”, Palla confirmed. “They still live at our farm back home.”

“You did mention a farm once!” Minerva beamed. “I feel like such a city kid, all I’ve done is gone on one of those school field trips to an organic place and have calves bite our fingers.”

Palla snorted a laugh. “Calves are very dangerous, yes.”

“Truly terrifying for an eight-year-old”, Minerva laughed with her. “I don’t get why they’d do that.”

“It’s because having a high sucking motivation helps them survive as mammals”, Palla responded reflexively. “It’s a pretty big deal since it’s a problem how they can cause damage to fellow cows by doing so if one doesn’t take preventive measures.”

Minerva arched her brows at her. “I don’t speak veterinarian, but it’s all worth it hearing you say ‘ _sucking motivation_ ’.”

Palla flushed indignantly. “It’s a real term!”

“Uh-huh”, Minerva teased, and reached for the door to a big, glass covered building with an ice cream cone at the top as a giant spire, and beneath it was a sign spelling out _‘Frost’s Icicle’_. “After you.”

Palla let her have the last word, if not only because of how the mere _vastness_ of the place overwhelmed her into silence. She stepped inside and was surrounded by rows upon rows of ice cream and frozen yogurt and sorbets. This was a far stretch from the little ice cream hut in the nearest town to the farm, where there were three flavors and one _‘extra_ ’ flavor (which was just what the owner had happened to find at a discount).

“Oh wow”, she whispered.

Minerva nabbed a ticket from a dispenser and waved it between index and middle finger toward one of the cashiers. There weren’t that many others at the shop at the time, so they were immediately called to the desk by a digital display of their queue number.

Palla had _not_ had enough time to decide, so she hurried to scan through the multitude of flavors before her. _Carrot, blueberry, saffron, cinnamon bun, cookie dough, chocolate chip, mint, cherry, green apple, red apple, strawberry—_

“Raspberry and liquorice, please”, Minerva said as she put the ticket with their number down on the desk.

The cashier nodded and placed two large scoops into a beaker, all while Palla’s eyes darted over the room.

“Want me to recommend you some good ones?” Minerva asked her, and Palla flexed a finger.

“Just one.”

“Though one… I suppose I have to pick hazelnut cream”, Minerva answered with a tilt of her head. For someone with such a tough exterior, she could really move in a soft and gentle way.

Palla nodded, and was about to point at the glass until she saw the ‘ _please don’t touch the glass’_ -sign, and pulled her hand back. The cashier stared at her with a bored expression, hot water dripping from the freshly cleaned scooping spoon.

“Let’s see… Pistachio and hazelnut cream, please.”

Palla got her beaker, and they paid separately, before they walked out and sat down on the edge of the water. Their feet were far from the waves of the surface, but Palla could feel the cold against her soles through her sandals nonetheless.

“All right then”, Minerva said, and lifted her beaker like she was making a toast. “Cheers to your first visit at _Forst’s_.”

Palla lifted her beaker in turn and then she scraped the creamy scoop onto her spoon and tasted it.

“Oh, that’s _good_ ”, Palla murmured and put another spoonful into her mouth.

“I know, right?” Minerva grinned. “Hazelnut cream is the best. Or, well, _second_ best I suppose.” She tapped her spoon against the intense black of her liquorice. “I picked raspberry and liquorice because I thought the colors looked nice together, but it turned out it was also delicious, so win-win.”

“Hm”, Palla said sceptically and rested her spoon. “I’ve never had liquorice.”

“Want to taste?”

Honestly, the black goop didn’t look that edible to Palla. But she put on her best brave face and nodded. Before she had time to take her spoon out of her ice cream, Minerva had scooped up some on hers and reached it to Palla.

“Oh”, Palla said, taking the spoon. “You sure?”

“Unless you mind?”

“Ah— no, not at all.” She raised the spoon with a slight nod. “Cheers.”

She put it in her mouth.

Her first feeling was regretting she was ever born.

Her second that it was sweet, not so bad after all—

Her third was the same as her first, except twice as strong.

She hulked before she could stop herself, then she cleared her throat and put on a thoughtful face, as if she was really pondering the taste, while all it did was burn her tongue.

 _Just focus on the raspberry_ , her thoughts wailed. _It’s sweet, fresh and— Oh, UGH—_

She swallowed after half an eternity, and gave Minerva back the spoon with her best impression of an uninterested-but-also-intrigued face.

“It was good”, she croaked.

She dared a look in Minerva’s face, and a flush spread over her face immediately. Minerva was grinning wide, her eyes shining of amusement.

“You looked like you were dying”, she chuckled, taking another bite of her hellish ice cream. “I’m sorry for tormenting you, pistachio-girl.”

“Pistachio _is_ better”, Palla answered. “But yours was… Well… It wasn’t _bad_ … I might buy it myself one day.”

“Or I could buy it for you”, Minerva laughed. “And then eat it for you, too.”

Palla smiled shakily. “That I wouldn’t mind, if it means we’ll go here again together.”

Minerva arced a brow, and seemed flustered for just a moment. Then she cleared her throat and looked out over the open sea.

“Have you ever been abroad?” Minerva asked.

Palla shook her head. “This is the furthest away from home I’ve ever been. You?”

Minerva nodded. “It’s weird, though”, she said. “My father used to travel a lot for work, and when he died, my brother took over his company… And me and my sister was always forced to go with them, to learn and make good impressions, all of that rich-kid stuff. I saw the whole world, but through the glass of hotel rooms, and still I feel like I have yet to see any of it. Maria wanted to go outside when we were in Khadein, but we barely had the time to plan for a trip outside the city before we had to get on another plane. And so it went, all the time. All I saw were people in suits, and nothing genuine, ever.”

“Oh”, Palla said, pausing with her spoon in pistachio. “That doesn’t sound very nice. Are you still doing that?”

“Nope”, Minerva answered and drummed her spoon against the edge of her beaker. “I split off from all of it, and I don’t care about Michalis disowning me or whatever. I can make it on my own. I’m glad the court let me be the guardian of Maria, so that she can grow up as a normal kid. More or less, anyway.”

Minerva’s eyes were still set on the horizon, but she glanced over at Palla for a moment. There was such contentment in her gaze. Even though Palla had never gotten the full story on just _how_ rich her family had been, she knew that Minerva now lived in a small apartment and worked full time and that it probably had been a harrowing wake-up call. And yet she seemed so happy to be free, with such determination to lead her own life, and Palla found herself admiring all of it.

“How long have you and Maria been… on your own?” she asked carefully. Minerva didn’t seem to mind at all, merely scratched her chin.

“A year and a half, soon.” Minerva looked back over the ocean, and shook her head. “I don’t regret any of it. It’s not like we struggle, but I keep thinking that maybe one day I can go for a trip outside the city with Maria and take all the time we need to experience our visits to the fullest.” Minerva rested her head in her hand and glanced over at Palla again. “That’s what I think about when I look out over the ocean, you see. Sorry for going all emotional on you.”

“Oh no, it’s an admirable goal”, Palla reassured her. “And I don’t mind. Taking trips outside of town sounds nice. I mean, I used to jog through the woods outside our farm almost every day, and I’d take the horses up on the mountains of Wyvernsdale... I miss that.”

“I would too”, Minerva said and took another bite of ice cream. “It sounds amazing. I used to ride when I was little, until the travelling got so intense I couldn’t keep up with my lessons.”

“I had you figured for a horse girl”, Palla chuckled. “It takes one to know one.”

Time moved like the waves below them, steadily but impossible to keep track of. Palla was just telling Minerva in detail about her mishaps on her riding trips and making Minerva laugh over them (which was the best feeling ever, no exaggeration), when the sun was getting just a little bit too far down on the horizon to be able to ignore.

Minerva threw an eye on her phone. “I have to pick Maria up in twenty minutes”, she said and put her empty ice cream beaker down beside her. “I suppose I’d better go. Maria’s friend lives in Westbridge, so its about a fifteen-minute walk.”

“I can come with you”, Palla said. “I live on Westbridge too.”

“Oh, sweet”, Minerva said and reached out her hand to help her up, and then took her empty ice cream cup and shoved it into the trashcan outside the shop.

It wasn’t summer yet, so Palla shivered slightly as they began their walk toward Westbridge.

“You want to borrow my jacket?” Minerva asked, and without waiting for a response, she pulled the jacket off her shoulders and put it over Palla’s.

Palla pulled it tighter around herself with a silent ‘ _thank you_ ’ (but on the inside, she was practically screaming). She wasn’t one hundred percent about if this had been a _date_ -date or not, but she was kind of getting surer by the minute.

“The red frills must go well with my hair”, Palla teased, just to test the waters a bit, and Minerva’s smile was kind of _shy_ as she leaned back to check (she might not nearly be as confident as she let on).

“Nothing goes quite so well together as red and green”, she said, and then tilted her head again, in that Minerva sort of way. “How come you did color it that way?”

“I guess sometimes you just want people to see you and think you’re a wood nymph, you know? Especially when I was riding through the woods with the wind in my hair. I felt really powerful.”

Minerva’s eyes closed halfway as she smiled. “Sounds like quite a sight. I’d love to see that.”

Okay, yeah, now they were definitely flirting, right?

“It’s Saintly Twin’s week in a month”, Palla blurted. “I’ll be coming home then, but I mean, maybe you could visit for a day or two? I mean, because you wanted to leave town and maybe you could even ride for a bit, right? I mean, no pressure, just a suggestion—”

“I’ll see if I can get off from work”, Minerva said, clearly trying to sound casual. “I’d love to, I mean. I do have my sister to take care of, but if she’d be welcome to stay for a bit as well, then… I know she’d be super excited to see horses for real.”

“Not to make hard plans yet”, Palla chuckled, “but it sounds really nice. I think my sisters would love the company of someone who doesn’t blurt out random facts about veterinary science. I _should_ get to know you better before then, though.”

“It’s a shame we’re not in the same group in the book club anymore”, Minerva said and hugged herself. She seemed cold, so Palla gave her the jacket back.

“I have your number though”, Palla answered. “And maybe we can do this again sometime, even if books aren’t involved. You work in the hospital restaurant, right? That’s not too far away from uni! We could have lunch together, maybe?”

“It’s a date”, Minerva said, adjusting the frills of her jacket. Then she stopped in front of an apartment building with red brick and turquoise roofing. A face appeared in the window, with dishevelled hair and an empty expression, before said person appeared to open the door to the building.

“ _Yes_ , I let them braid my hair”, the man grumbled as a greeting. “And unbraid it. A thousand times. No comments, please.”

“Hello, Luthier”, Minerva nodded at him. “Thank you for looking after her.”

“Oh yeah, anytime, as long as they stay at _your_ place next time”, Luthier answered, before he turned to shout up the stairs. “Delthea! Maria! It’s time!”

Palla heard a decided _‘no!’_ and then another voice yelling ‘ _it’s not eight o’ clock YET_ ’, and Minerva merely smiled wider and shook her head. And not long after, a small girl around the age of twelve appeared in the doorway, her hair red like Minerva’s and eyes a shining brown, beside a girl of the same age with chestnut hair in a lopsided ponytail.

Palla started to realize she might be overstaying her welcome in Minerva’s presence, and hurried to clear her throat.

“Thank you for tonight, Minerva. Have a good... evening.”

Minerva chuckled softly. “You too. I’ll be in touch.”

Palla wasn’t sure if she should hug her or not – shaking hands seemed just out of place, really – and so she merely waved and turned on her heel.

Her apartment wasn’t far away, the student blocks were on top of a hill and this had been on the base of that hill, and as she wandered past the convenience store she knew she was home. She turned a corner and searched for her keys.

When she’d first moved in and Est had helped her, her sister had chuckled about how messy it would get within a week, but Palla kept it neat and tidy. She made the crowded bed every morning, carefully paged through the piles of folded laundry in her two drawers built in beneath the bed, she made sure her tiny houseplant was doing well on the windowsill to the window that was as large as her face. She studied by the desk with earplugs constantly put in her ears, and sometimes she went down to the store to get snacks.

It was by all means a good apartment, considering it was pretty central, and as Palla locked the door and took off her shoes she sunk down on her bed.

She wasn’t sure if she could do anything at all, even though she wasn’t tired enough to sleep, she was pretty overwhelmed emotionally. She texted Catria ‘ _I think I just went on a date_ ’, knowing her sister would probably scream as she looked at her phone, which made her smile slightly. ‘ _Anyway, I miss you, say hi to Est_ ’, she added, and then rested her arm against the sheets with a sigh.

With the peace and quiet came the doubts. Had she left too early? Had she been weird? What had she even _said_? She hovered with her fingers over Minerva’s contact. Would she make everything worse if she said something? Or would her silence seem worse?

She bit her lip and tapped a quick ‘ _thank you for today, I had fun’_ , and sent it before she could change her mind. Then she regretted it, obviously.

She dug her face down into a pillow with a groan, but before she had the time to get too embarrassed about herself, her phone buzzed with Catria’s name on the screen.

Palla answered the call. It was nice to talk it out, and hear Catria’s reassurance that Minerva seemed great (but not as great as whoever Catria crushed on at the moment, whoever that secret person was _this_ time) and that Palla hadn’t been terribly awkward, at least not by “grown-up standards”.

As Palla quit the call, she still hadn’t gotten a response from Minerva. She sighed through her nose and rested the phone on her chest, but as she did, it buzzed again with activity. She flipped it over, and relaxed her shoulders.

Minerva had sent an image of herself and Maria in what must have been their home. Arts and crafts were everywhere, unfinished dishes in the sink and a tiny sofa in the corner, surrounded by bookshelves. Maria proudly held a book titled _A Canvas of a Billion Suns_ , and Minerva had attached the text saying: ‘ _She wanted to ask you if you’ve read this one, it’s one of her favorites. You can answer in the morning, it’s her bedtime anyway. I’m awake for later though, if you want to talk for a bit?’_

Palla closed her eyes for a moment, let herself just breathe. Had air always tasted this good? Her heart fluttered and her face wouldn’t stop smiling.

‘ _I’d love to. Call me?’_

_‘you bet. Hang on though, gotta check Maria’s wardrobe for monsters. talk to you soon’_

There were no other buzzes for a while, but Palla could wait. She rested her head against the pillow and let her eyes drift over the ceiling, the taste of pistachio still lingering on her tongue as she smiled.


End file.
